Monday, 19 September 2016

Life Lately...

With Spring upon us we have been embracing the chance to get our garden on around here lately at the Stack-house.

We've been potting and repotting our succulents, getting out hands dirty building veggies patches... and oh who are we kidding?

It's all really just a thinly veiled excuse to pay visit after visit to our new favourite place Newleaf Nursery.

My kids are seriously beyond infatuated with this place.

Given the choice of what to do with a quiet Sunday yesterday, they chose to go to the nursery to pick out some bits and bobs for their salad garden they are working on and of course spend a while hugging a chicken or two in the process.

I have always known that our boys were big animal lovers, but lately they have been absolutely besotted with the chickens and goats at this place. So much so that the two younger ones have announced that they want to adopt a goat... and a pig... and a Statue of Liberty.

I have no idea what the Statue of Liberty has to do with farm animals or what the sudden interest in concrete landmarks is but hey... whatever works for you right?

Sadly for them, the chances of us having chickens and goats in our suburban backyard are Bourke to Buckleys. Our neighbours are too close to us and we have dogs that would see those chickens as nothing more than lunch on legs.

Someone did mention to me though that some local farms allow kids to come and help feed the animals and tend to the crops. Not Farm Stays... just a pseudo community farm kind of set up.

I freaking love this concept... although after failing to find anything on Google and short of knocking on doors and asking if they would mind if we bombarded their property, I have no idea how one would find out about these places anywhere on the Northern Beaches.

Any ideas you guys? Have you heard about it?

All animals and gardens aside, our boys show no signs of giving up their love of comics and all things Star Wars. We were lucky enough to visit Oz Comic Con last weekend. It was our first time ever going to one of these events and holy bat balls you guys - we felt like fish out of water. We didn't dress up and boy did it show because the effort that some of the comic enthusiasts go to with their costumes was freakishly mind blowing.

We had a hoot wandering around checking everything out and even the man child wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to pose with a storm trooper or two.

It hasn't been all fun and games around here lately, no siree, there has been some hard yakka going on too.

We've been busy doing some much needed work on our backyard. Nothing major major, but big enough to be callus material if you know what I mean?

We are redoing parts of the garden, pruning, putting in new plants, repotting all the existing big plants around the pool and then of course there is the sanding and repainting all the woodwork and feature walls etc that needed to be done.

"Who's bright ideas was to have a wooden feature wall?" was what I was asking myself after hours on the orbital sander followed by more hours of painting.

I conveniently forgot that it was mine when I whinged to the hubby about the pins and needles and raging red blisters on my hands.

I've given us three weeks to get it all done.

Partly because I am extremely impatient... but mostly because I practically self combusted when it rained yesterday and the dogs dragged all the exposed dirt / MUD into the house.

First world problems... I know.

Me and my bright ideas. They always seem good... at the time!

We are winding down here for the last week of term and like most people we are SO ready for a break from those rushed school mornings and weekday routines.

We're planning on sneaking away for a week of camping... don't laugh, I can totally do tents.

I can!

What I can't do is believe that our little middle dude Sam has only one term left of Primary school.

I am not ready for this to happen and I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that he clearly is.

He's is still sooooo little, no like really! Well, in size anyway.

We tried on some high school blazers recently and they absolutely swamped the munchkin, so much so that we are going to have to get a special custom sized one made for him.